Power line has a post today that seems to me to be right on the topic of what these students want, which is freedom from accountability. They are afraid they are overmatched against white colleagues. They can’t hack it and want a pass. It is called “Mismatch.”
The biggest change since Grutter, though, has nothing to do with Court membership. It is the mounting empirical evidence that race preferences are doing more harm than good?—even for their supposed beneficiaries. If this evidence is correct, we now have fewer African-American physicians, scientists, and engineers than we would have had using race-neutral admissions policies. We have fewer college professors and lawyers, too. Put more bluntly, affirmative action has backfired.
Why is this ? We know that the normal distribution of IQ is a standard deviation lower for blacks than whites.
This is the over all curve with the distribution around an average of 100, by definition.
The curve for blacks has a peak at IQ about 80. White peak at 100 to 104. Asians peak at around 106. What this means is that the average IQ is lower for blacks but this does not mean that all blacks are less intelligent than whites. At an IQ of 110 there is a large difference but the number of blacks who will do well in certain academic fields like Medicine is still significant. It would seem important to identify those blacks who will do well in fields requiring higher than average intelligence but the present system of affirmative action ignores this truth.
according to data released by the University of Texas in connection with Fisher, the mean SAT scores (out of 2400) and mean high-school grade-point averages (on a 4.0 scale) varied widely by race for the entering class of 2009. For Asians, the numbers were 1991 and 3.07; whites were at 1914 and 3.04; Hispanics at 1794 and 2.83; and African-Americans at 1524 and 2.57. The SAT scores for the Asian students placed them in the 93rd percentile of 2009 SAT-takers nationwide; the African-American students, meanwhile, were at the 52nd percentile.
There seems to be a sort of civil rights movement among black students to ignore the facts and promote “students of color” regardless of ability.
Exams are the main mechanism that, in many classes, separates high performing students from average and poor performing ones. Studying is an important mechanism through which highly capable students convert their potential into high performance.
Most colleges do what they can to reduce and mask the disparity between the performance of affirmative action admittees and their better-credentialed peers. Grade inflation means that below average performers can still get decent-sounding grades. Courses in which little more than mastery of politically correct jargon can yield an A or A-minus are offered. On a more salutary note, tutoring and writing assistance are available.
In the end, however, students admitted due to racial preferences surely understand that they are at a competitive disadvantage. This realization is likely to have adverse psychological consequences for some.
It sounds like the present student agitators are determined to overcome the mathematics of IQ.
some of the more mystifying aspects of the militant fragility become easier to explain. Why does this movement insist that its members’ mental health is in jeopardy? The fact that someone, somewhere on a sprawling campus used the “N” word seems like an insufficient explanation. The fact that these students are competing with students who have a built-in advantage seems like a better one.
Why has “white privilege” become such a catch-phrase? It’s minority students who have the privilege of attending a college that, but for their race, they would not be admitted to. For that matter, it’s minority students who apparently have the privilege of verbally abusing white students in explicitly racial terms without, from all that appears so far, facing disciplinary consequences.
To be sure, the typical white student had more advantages growing up than the typical black student, and these advantages in some cases are for life. But as I understand it, the “white privilege” mantra claims that the privilege adheres in “whiteness” itself, regardless of economic or family circumstances.
I feel sorry for these students because, due to white leftist orthodoxy, they have been placed in a situation where they cannot succeed. They know it and demand special privileges. All this does is to degrade the accomplishments of black students who are far enough to the right in the curve to succeed in math or engineering or medicine.
Biology can be merciless at times but it does rule.
Tags: education
Excellent post. Knowledge of the normal distribution is lacking in our society, and it leads to strange policies, such as women in combat. In every such discussion, I get around to explaining the normal dist. and why it means some women may be stronger than some men, but that’s not the way to bet.
Black performance in the job field mirrors academia in many ways, with internet message boards filled with stories of low performing minorities given make work jobs with no expectation of any performance; just hope that they do no damage.